Institut Montana, as a Swiss-international boarding and day school, strongly believes that learning best happens through social interaction within its diverse community being physically present on the school campus. To make learning even more contemporary and sustainable, we have been implementing our new digital learning strategy: e-nstitut Montana hybrid schooling, i.e. lessons that, using educational technology, can be delivered face-to-face, remotely or – as a blend between the two – hybridly.
Rationale for Hybrid Schooling
Institut Montana defines three reasons for hybrid schooling:
- Contemporariness: reality of digital natives, use of personal device as a work tool, cross-subject competences, skills for higher education & professional life, employability
- Learning potential: access to „world knowledge“, individualisation & personalisation
- Emergency schooling: teacher/student absence, natural disaster, etc.
Emergency e-schooling became a reality in school year 2019-2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic impacted institutions worldwide. Institut Montana reacted quickly by entirely adapting all classes, tests, after-school activities, parents-teacher conferences, and even the International School graduation ceremony, online for two full months before gradually allowing our students back on campus over a period of 7 weeks, with approximately half of the students still participating in the classes hybridly from their homes. In doing so, we were able to successfully maintain teaching & learning during the three-and-a-half-months-long impact of this global health situation onto the regular school calendar.
E-nstitut Montana Hybrid Schooling Development
- Software: both students and teachers are fully operational using Microsoft 365 (in the International School also ManageBac) allowing them to collaboratively make use of all its functions, in particular the calendar, mailing, document management, e-lessons and videoconferencing.
- Hardware: both students and teachers bring their own device; teacher laptops are updated for the use of a touchscreen and pen to deliver classes using the virtual whiteboard.
- Lesson preparation: teachers are preparing their lessons on Microsoft 365 Teams (in the International School also ManageBac) in order for them to be applied face-to-face, remotely or hybridly at any given time.
- Ongoing professional development: Institut Montana Zugerberg, together with its partner firm Scheuss & Partner, is organising regular professional development days throughout the school year for teachers to familiarise themselves with the use of new educational hard- and software and to share best practices between colleagues in school-wide learning areas.
By fully implementing e-nstitut Montana hybrid schooling, Institut Montana is able to further modernise, focus and secure our students’ schooling while offering our families an additional service to ensure that no school days are ever missed and this at any given time, no matter of the circumstances: whether one or more of us will be physically present on campus or off-campus due to e.g. a professional development, an indisposition, or – hopefully not – yet another COVID-19 wave…
